Piedmont Airlines of yesteryear
 

A lot of websites offer pictures of extinct airlines but this one has Quicktime videos of old Piedmont Airlines commercials. Check it out if this kind of stuff interests you:

http://www.jetpiedmont.com/gallery/c...als/index.php3

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Ah, Piedmont. They were my first real airline. I used to fly them all the time when I had to get to and from college. They were pretty much the only airline that offered a direct flight from DCA to Champaign so I took them. Everyone else made me stop somewhere else and then get on a prop plane to boot, so I loved Piedmont.

I recall PI's $19 promotional fare between Newark and Greensboro in May 1984. Do I recall that Piedmont purchased Allegheny?

You may recall that http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif, but no, it was the other way around, Allegheny became USAir and purchased Piedmont not long after.

I DO recall correctly that Terry Labonte won the NASCAR Winston Cup championship in 1984 driving the "Piedmont Airlines Chevrolet".

I sure remember Piedmont. HKY was a cool little airport and you could fly directly to a number of southern cities without having to always go to CLT first. Now most of those towns are just feeder routes for USAirways. There are now only 4 flts a day - all Jetstream 32's - and all of those to CLT. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Yeah, I imagine the people in Champaign aren't too happy about having to fly prop planes again, either. Champaign is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere so if they're not willing to drive a couple of hours, they're stuck with props.

"Ah, Piedmont. They were my first real airline."

December, 1965 courtesy of the U.S. Army. Piedmont DC-6 into AUG. My first free flight. Flew BUF-PIT-?-AUG.

MileageAddict. Do you remember the flight crews on those flights? Some crews were actually based in Wilmington, NC. They had the same attitudes as those of the original Braniff and PSA.

Enjoy your travels thru Oklahoma. Visit Fairview whose only claim to fame is that my Mother-in-Law lives there.

I used to fly Piedmont between Tampa and Philadelphia (via CLT) in the early 80's when I would go home for the holidays from college.



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I too flew Piedmont home from college in the early 80s. Routing was ORD-RIC-ORF-BOS, and BOS-RIC-ORD (no plane changes) the other way. Sounds like the routings FTers take now to get extra miles, but I was trying to save $ rather than fly AA or UA direct.

I recall that they used to call some of their really cheap fares, "Hopscotch Fares" because you had to make several stops to get to your final destination

TW

In the 60's Piedmont used to fly from RDU to STL with about 4 stops. The plane was a "Martin 404 Pacemaker," some kind of turboprop. Once coming into Charlston, WV on the way from RDU 18 out of 24 passengers got airsick.

I first flew Piedmont back in July of 1976. I flew from EWR to ORF to ILM to ATL as part of a three airline joint fare between New York and Denver.

Do any of you remember joint fares? Did any of you use them? Even though for the most part they pre-dated mileage programs, for a mileage/flight junkie like me, they were great!

My trip that time was from New York to Denver using the folllowing joint fare:
PI to ATL
EA to MEM
BN to DEN
All for $3.00 less than UA or TW's nonstop rate. My routing, including a couple of milk-runs, was as follows:

PI: EWR-ORF-ILM-ATL
EA: ATL-MEM
BN: MEM-LIT-FSM-TUL-OKC-DFW-DEN

Piedmont jets were called "Pacemakers" I flew "The Kanawha Pacemaker" My Braniff jets were orange, orange and green!

A friend of mine was stationed in North Carolina in the early 80's, and flew Piedmont several times. He said the story was that they were going to have a flight from Charlotte to London. The only thing was, the flight had stops in Ashville, Chattanooga, Pensacola, Biloxi... :-)

take care,
Scott

There's a great airline memorabilia store at O'Hare - take the tunnel to the Hilton, it's on the right directly opposite where you would turn left to enter the hotel. I didn't look specifically for Piedmont the last time I was there, early this year, but they have so much stuff, including things from several airlines like Eastern that are no longer flying, that I'm sure any Piedmont fan would find some. (Great selection of lapel pins, among other things.)

I flew Piedmont all the time in the 80s, and by far the best part was the Piedmont Punch during beverage service.

Absolutely! By the time I was 15 years old, the travel agency downwtown would give me their slightly expired (I think they came out weekly) OAG directory. This was a book that was as thick as a Manhattan Yellow Pages! The summer I turned 16 (yes, only 16), I set up an itinerary that would be called a "classic run" nowadays since this was before mileage. The best part of flying back then was having Dad pay for everything!

Air Florida PHL-DCA-MIA (stayed with grandma for a week)

National MIA-MSY (arrive very early AM, departed that late evening on Amtrak)

Amtrak from New Orleans to Chicago (arrived early AM, departed late PM)

Amtrak Chicago to St. Paul, MN (stayed with friends for a week)

Braniff MSP-MCI (stayed with an old college roomate of my fathers...who happen to have a wonderfully friendly daughter my age)

TWA MCI-PHL My last flight ever on a 707.

If I recall, this entire itinerary cost less than $500....Dad figured it was cheaper than the same amount of time at summer camp.



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Say more about joint fares. Did you have to be in the smoking section? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I go back even further with PI. I started my business air travel in Virginia in the '50s and flew the DC3, 404, but mostly the high wing F27 - and later what probably few ever heard of, much less flew, the Japanese built YS-11 - all prop planes.

Later I "went north" to work, ending up in the Big Apple via Detroit; but I was always partial to PI over EA and DL. Dayton was a great hub and Tom Davis, the PI founder, was the Herb Kelleher of that day.

If AL, which became US and absorbed PI, had adopted the PI culture, the UA/US purchase shoe would have been on the other foot!

It was interesting to see photos of these planes on the above website. http://www.jetpiedmont.com/index1.php3



[This message has been edited by kappa (edited 11-26-2001).]

Remember the good old days of 1000 mile mimimums and triple miles? I used to take PI from CMI to ITH to/from school, and one trip was enough for a free ticket. CMI-DAY-LGA-SYR-ITH. 24,000 miles round trip. Ahhhh...

What a timely thread. I just spent Thanksgiving in Winston-Salem, NC and got together with a group of friends, most of whom worked for Piedmont or had close ties with people who did. We lived in an apartment complex during the 60's that was full of pilots, FA's, res/counter agents, mechanics, etc. and it was a close and fun-loving bunch. We recounted lots of tales and reminisced about the "good ole' days" when airline employees actually liked their jobs and there was a mutual respect between them and their customers. I can assure you that it was a very gloomy day for lots of people in W-S when U.S. Air took over!